Rockstar HR Director Faces Tough Questions Over Alleged Discord 'Mole' at Glasgow Labor Tribunal

An employment tribunal sitting in Glasgow continued to scrutinize Rockstar Games this week, as lawyers representing more than thirty fired developers pressed the studio on the circumstances surrounding their October 2025 dismissals. The workers allege they were targeted because of union activity organised through the UK trade group IWGB; Rockstar maintains the firings were lawful responses to gross misconduct and information security breaches.

Central to this week's hearing was testimony concerning a junior employee referred to only as "AB," who is alleged to have passed screenshots from a private union organising Discord server to studio management over a period spanning more than two years. Counsel for the dismissed workers argued that the decision not to call "AB" as a witness prevents the tribunal from establishing whether that individual received any compensation or incentive in exchange for the information, a point that Rockstar's legal team disputed.

Charlie Kinloch, co-studio manager and HR director at Rockstar Lincoln, took the stand and faced sustained questioning about the gap between when management first became aware of union organising discussions — as early as March 2025 — and when the wave of terminations occurred that October. Lawyers pressed Kinloch on why communications observed months earlier were not acted upon sooner, and why the firing decisions arrived within days of Rockstar announcing the delay of GTA 6 from its original May 2026 window to November 2026. Kinloch testified that the October timing reflected heightened commercial sensitivity and a surge in Discord membership that made user identification difficult.

The hearings add a further layer of public scrutiny to Rockstar ahead of Grand Theft Auto VI's November 19 launch on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. The tribunal is expected to continue in the coming weeks, with additional witnesses yet to be called.